In his statement assuming political responsibility in running for the office of President of Romania, Mr. Theodor Stolojan insisted on pointing out that the Liberal values he believes in are: personal freedom, private property, competition and the rule-of-law state.
For the first time this year, a few clear doctrinal details are emerging on the Romanian political market. Liberal ideas increasingly appear as the only forces able to accelerate transition. The goal of the Stolojan candidacy is “going the road of prosperity.”
In his statement, “Stolo” tells the civil society and specialists that the country’s economic situation is a derivative of the political situation. Therefore, the political system should be made more effective.
Disagreements and ideological clashes between party leaders are justified by the natural tendency to compete with each other. This confrontation must be founded on the basic problems of the Romanian society.
Sensing the “danger,” political adversaries have already rated the Liberal candidate as an “accountant” or “outsider.” With a powerful analytical sense, the liberal “Stolo” went on to state the main causes for the social decline: inefficient political structures, economic inefficiency and corruption.
The 1996-2000 government relied on a mixture of doctrines that failed to place the Romanian economy on an upward curve. And, since the great social changes are not accomplished by masses, but by ideas, it is not incidental that we are witnessing an invigoration of the Liberal doctrine.
Although in ’89 the Romanian earned his “allowance of freedom,” over the ninth decade he has felt increasingly “chained.” Why? Because individual liberties have not relied on authentic economic freedom.
Claiming to be the “engine” of CDR, PN?CD ideologists have stuck to economic policy measures that were very close to the socialist type, because society works as much as property works. Preserving a large portion of the state property had preserved a socialist economic behaviour and proliferated economic inefficiency.
Concretely, this is about promoting a mixed type of economy, combining the virtues of socialism with those of capitalism. Never in the Romanian society have we witnessed an authentic doctrinal confrontation beyond mere statements. Parties such as PDSR, PNR or PSM have called themselves adherents of the “middle way.”
But the ruling coalition, too, through its economic policy, is now reaping the fruits of such a doctrine. Within parliament speeches, accusations were often phrased against a “savage liberalism,” a laissez-faire doctrine, demanding the state to return into the economy. Therefore, today Mr. Basescu sounds “bizarre” when he says “the Liberal option is the only one that can guarantee Romania’s future.”
Of course, left-wing parties that pretend to be representing “the social-democratic pole” will deny this possibility, saying that over time, the instruments and means were created that, once commissioned, can neutralise the secondary, negative effects of the free market economy.
Stolo’s adherents must bring “the wind of change” in the direct confrontation with all conservative inertia. They are the bearers of a clear image: the virtues of the free market -long affected by exaggerated interventionism – can take place not by returning to the “law-of-the-jungle capitalism,” but by removing the “ballast” of the totalitarian economy, by a profound decentralisation and by increasing the degree of economic freedom, in line with rule-of-law principles.
In this sense, “Stolo” is right: “a poor man, with an empty stomach, has only one liberty – that of seeing he has nothing to eat.” It is, to some extent, the re-phrasing of an Eminescu thought: “everyone feels just as free as he is rich.”
In a populist vision, the left – polarised around the PDSR – speculates the poor people’s inclination for the old times. The popular support Iliescu relies on differs from the “popular support” expected by Premier Isarescu.
A new confrontation: laissez-faire – interventionism
The object of the present analysis is not to discuss, again, the relative merits of planning or of the market, but to question their compatibility. Often, we have heard socialists praising the “blessings” of the past: “We have renounced any kind of plan and planning, any forecast that would ensure the consistency of reform with production, and of production with consumption.”
Consequently, we are not addressing only the socialists, tempted by more or less collectivist solutions, but all those who honestly believe in the virtues of the free market economy, who incessantly maintain the irreplaceable character of free initiative, but who believe, nevertheless, that:
a) it is legitimate and natural that the state should intervene to make up for the spontaneous functioning of the market;
b) in these difficult times, this intervention requires greater consistency and, at the same time, a stronger voluntarist character. These people should be addressed the message: “There is no middle way” by which to find an alternative between capitalism and socialism. Such a populist thesis appears as a myth, a bait, an intellectual illusion.
So there are political forces who speculate the “distressed masses” and some people’s inclination to rehabilitate elements of totalitarian economies. In their vision, the Romanian society should follow the middle way, between socialism and capitalism, being the adherents of “system convergence” without contributing to the “sacralisation” of any of them.
The socialists, next to the social-democrats, supporting the market economy model, are again discussing the principle “Planning and market economy,” in opposition with the Liberal vision, “Planning or market economy.”
Planning and market economy are two antagonistic and contradicting concepts, whose alliance only leads to a result that is the exact opposite of that sought by “Stolo” (going the road of prosperity).
Therefore, this corresponds to a few of the arguments most frequently cited to justify the resorting to more or less developed, or more or less controversial, methods of centralised control.
We want that statements such as: “everything state-owned or state-controlled is not good, in their concept” should not be misunderstood. Also, this analysis is intended to submit to your attention everything that constitutes the great intellectual error of the world we are living in – the concept of the mixed economy.
A dilemma of the power
The above ideas lead, in fact, to the catastrophic intellectual mistake contemporary Romanian political philosophy is founded on. Whether it is about reform-minded socialism, social-democracy or even neo-communism, as it is practised on a daily basis by the “algorithm-based government” of the present coalition, all citizens loyal to it, unknowingly, remain the slaves of a way of thinking that perpetuates as follows:
a) The first step consists of the words of the December neo-revolutionaries, stating that market mechanisms are the only system that meets consumers’ demands, avoiding waste (until then, they backed planning as the miraculous instrument that prevented waste);
b) Since ’96, governments that came and went have sought, according to the “Stop and go” principle, the requirements that must be met to effectively build such a situation. Economic policy decisions have oscillated between “IMF recommendations” and “street pressure” (see miners, railwaymen, FNI investors, etc.). Prime Minister Isarescu has attempted to correct the economy’s trajectory, trying to enforce the “multipliers theory.” The expansion of foreign trade is an argument to that end;
c) Government experts and economic advisors that support the coordination of reform, infer what they call “competition conditions.” To this end, they propose (mostly by emergency ordinance) the components of the afferent legislative framework, which has not been completed to this day;
d) The partisans of establishing a “social-democratic and socialist pole” (or essentially socialist), especially PDSR and PSDR, plead for a re-distributive function of the state. The Ciorbea-Vasile government “distributed” everything that could be distributed and distanced itself further from the goals set forth in their economic policy programmes.
As they substituted themselves to Parliament, these governments deduced that it was the state’s role to intervene and correct market “imperfections.” We are not surprised by the words of another MP, who had a better sense of reality: “Instead of the state planning, a liberalism based on hearsay was introduced.
Prices were liberalised without enough commodities on supply.” Therefore, some people’s intentions (see mayor Basescu) to reintroduce the “mercurial” soothes the souls of those who fail to comprehend “free initiative and competition.”
e) These “imperfections,” carefully highlighted by the algorithm-driven power, but especially by our social-democrats, stem from the fact that the free market, the only place for individual motivation, does not always arrive at the ideal situation that would serve as a reference- as, for instance, it is in the presence of economies of scale by foreign effects – therefore it is inferred that it is natural and legitimate that the state is preoccupied and acts on these individual behaviours, or on the results of the game.
This will emphasise that the above-mentioned facts are different from what would happen if there would be no “third party” (the state) to control the spontaneous game of individual interests.
This is the conceptual foundation of the state’s all modern interventions. It is the full range of centralised control instruments: monopoly laws, nationalisation, planning, circumstantial demand-regulating policies (such as state subsidies or acquisitions), or all regulations regarding salaries, profit, prices, functioning of the labour market, pollution or security norms, product quality control, consumer protection, etc.
The logic behind this type of reasoning is not only that of experts, advisors or MPs. For more than 50 years, it has been what implicitly conditions the political and economic reflexes of political leaders. Therefore, now, when parties and the political class seem discredited before the electorate, when both power and opposition are in equally low regard, Liberal ideas are up for an invigoration.
The post-December “patterns and models” are rooted in a system of thinking based on the angelic and naive vision of the state. Therefore, the true problem, upon which depends the survival of our society, eaten by corruption, is not to choose between more or less “state.” It is much deeper. It is to consider what we are “in ourselves” – prisoners of systems of thinking that lead to results that are the exact opposite of what we want to obtain.